Boston

    
     So, last week I finally made my college decision and filled out all of my scholarships that were due just in time to head off on my senior trip- to Boston, Massachusetts!
     First, I have to say that Boston is a really attractive city. All of the architecture and brick houses with black trimming make it look so beautiful. Now, I've been to New York City (and don't get me wrong, I'm a die hard Yankees fan and all) but in comparing just the visual parts of each city- Boston wins by a landslide. It's just so pretty!

     First off when we got there, our class (all 30 of us) got on a Duck Tour bus and took a tour of the city. I enjoyed myself, but we were all pretty put out when they told us the 30mph winds (plus gusts) were keeping the vehicles off of the water that day. So the multi-terrain tour was only limited to the streets. : (
     Anyway- Our next stop was a lovely dinner cruise on the Spirit of Boston. I was impressed with the buffet and I think we all had a little fun dancing to the DJ.
     The next day we went on a whale watch, visited the New England Aquarium, walked the Freedom Trail and finished with dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Whale watching was a wonderful and only a tad boring experience.

     Me being the biology major, of course I have to go more into detail about the whales. First, you get to the wharf and the boat people advise you by saying "watch out, there are three-foot crests today" and "if you have seasickness medicine, take it." I'm all for a prep speech, but honestly, during the whole three hour trip I really didn't get how they thought those waves would cause seasickness (honestly I think it's just a sales pitch to get you to buy the medicine they sell on the boat). Anyway, after we got out of the bay and had ridden another hour out into the ocean, we started seeing our first whales- the finbacks. They were appropriately named I think because that's really all we saw- the little fin on their backs when they crested the surface. It was cool to see the little sprays erupt out of the water every once in awhile though.
     A little later on, we started to see strange little flocks of seagulls, gathered around bright turquoise water for no apparent reason. I watched one group for awhile and suddenly saw a smooth black...thing emerge from the center of the turquoise. It was a humpback whale's head! That was the way they fed- by scooping up their fishy food from below (the gulls hung around hoping to snatch a little snack for themselves). The whales were so beautiful- I think the best part was when their tails came up above water. It's amazing to fathom how huge they are! Our boat floated around them and one humpback even got as close as twenty feet! To really finish our watch with a flourish, a whole pod of dolphins swam in and stayed with us for a few minutes. To anyone contemplating a whale watching tour, it's highly worth it when you get out there!
     On the way back in, my friends and I hunkered down under the railings out of the wind. The boat was going so fast now that you could lean forward far enough that, while your center of gravity was far off, the wind would keep you upright. It was crazy!

     Directly after the tour boat docked, our group headed into the adjacent New England Aquarium. I won't describe every exhibit, but the highlights were a jellyfish room, penguins and a central cylindrical fish tank that housed sea animals from sharks to sea turtles to moray eels. I took so many pictures!
     A guy posing as Samuel Adams came to get us for the Freedom Trail next. I thought everything he had said was really interesting, but about halfway through my feet were hurting and I couldn't concentrate. My friend and I ended up making up a random freestyle rap to pass the time (disclaimer: I am a terrible rapper). Sam led us to the Hard Rock Cafe last and I enjoyed a pretty awesome chicken caesar salad with a nice view of the cymbal-covered wall and rock music echoing though the restaurant.

     Our final day was less crazy. We had a nice slow morning walking around Quincy Market and checking out all the merchandise. I was introduced to Starbucks and am convinced that java-chip frappuchinos are the best things in the world. Ever. I'm also convinced that my thin wallet will prevent me from enjoying these too often. : )
     Before the final ride home, we stopped at a recreation center for a couple hours and rode go-carts, played laser tag, and, my favorite, rock climbed! The only downside was the sore muscles from trying to hold on at the very top of the wall...and watching kids much younger than me reach the top of the "hard" course when I myself couldn't quite reach the top of the "medium" one! (don't worry, I was master of the beginner's level, haha).

     All in all it was a fantastic trip. The people that went are mostly mature so our chaperones could lie back a little and I think we all felt like it was a true vacation from the stressful, homework filled world we came from (and had to go back to).

Strange Black Rocks

 
  On the way home from a track meet earlier this week, my dad was showing me where he had seen a coyote on his way up to the school. I was looking out and trying to see if there was any sign of him still and saw something pretty amazing- beavers.
     Alright, so beavers may not be exciting to the average joe, but even having gone up and down this particular road (well known for the beaver dams in the adjacent ponds) multiple times in my life, this is the first time I've seen live, wild beavers. So for me, the wildlife enthusiast, this was very cool.
     They looked like black rocks when I first saw them. The darkness of the rocks seemed a little out of place, but as I kept looking at them my eyes picked out the fur and then all of the sudden I could see them moving, chewing on whatever they had in their paws. My dad was trying to show me a big tree that they had chewed through too. This happened fast, obviously because we were driving by in the jeep, but I still thought is was awesome.

     Also lately, our yard has been getting greener and greener- the dandelions have been popping up and the woods are getting harder and harder to see through. I rode my bike down by the river yesterday and even the water looked inviting. The sunlight glinted off of it in just a way that made it sparkle. Spring's really wonderful!

Argh.

     Yes, it's been one of those weeks (or rather, two weeks-ish).
     Have you ever felt so overwhelmed with things that you feel like you'll never get everything done? I have, and am. It's like drowning in a pool of all your to-dos. Ick. I mean, since some really relaxing and wonderful days I had last weekend, I feel like the world has turned against me! Alright, alright, it's not that bad, but I guess I'm just overwhelmed at all I have to do (like picking a college, doing my buttload of homework, and filling out scholarships!). Ah well, I'm sure it'll all work out, it's just hard to do everything when you've only got a couple free hours each night. Really though, I'll be happy in a few weeks when the work load will ease off and I can finally be on top of things again (argh, AP classes).

     Ok, sorry for complaining, but I just needed to write a little to get it off my chest. Maybe now I'll feel a little more motivated to do stuff knowing that it'll be better in only three weeks!


     I promise, next post'll be better.

LEAVES!!!

     One thing I didn't like about coming back up north after our trip to Florida was how drab it looks up here. As soon as you get beneath the Carolinas, it's green everywhere. Many of the tree's leaves have already come out, most notably the palms because they're everywhere too.
     Then you get to where I live, and the landscape is a brownish gray. You can see the dead leaf-ridden hillsides through the bare woods and even the fields are a grayish-straw color. Finally, after a little help from the rain, the grass started to turn a bright, pretty green and the trees had a kind of blush too them. As in the words of my sister: "It's like someone was color-by-numbering the world and they only used green"

     And now, thanks to this warm and humid weather, the hillside has turned from dusted with pink, to dotted with pastel green (yay!). Even the forsythias are blooming!
     I know springtime is getting to be a pretty recurring subject in my blog, but after months of snow and cold and blandness, it's just so exciting to me to see the colors coming out again! It's a small joy when I've got loads of other things on my mind (like finishing homework for my grueling AP course...grr).

Pinkletinks and Tinkletoes

It's finally April (one of my favorite months) and one night this weekend I heard one of my favorite sounds- spring peepers!

I live out on a rural road in a very rural town, so hearing these little frogs is no problem. I love opening the window or stepping out on the porch at dusk and hearing their chorus echoing across the cornfield and pastures. I can just imagine a whole group of the little peepers gathered around the edge of a small pond, hidden by the brush.

What fascinates me is how tiny they are for the volume they produce. I'm not an expert of course, but from what I just googled heard, they're only 1- 1.5 inches in length and I could hear them loud and clear up on the hill across from my house (probably a little more than a quarter of a mile- with lots of trees and bushes in between).

I don't particularly know why I love these amphibians so much, but one thing's for sure- they mean green trees and blossoming flowers are just around the corner!

P.S. Oh and the explanation of this post's title: Peepers are called pinkletinks in Martha's Vinyard and tinkletoes in New Bruswick... heehee

Disney World

I'm going to kind of branch off of my last post and talk more about the rides and shows of Disney World.
Now don't get me wrong, everything that I rode or watched in the park was awesome, but I have a list of my favorites

Here are my Top Five:

 5. Pirates of the Caribbean, Adventureland, Magic Kingdom
          I'm not a huge fan of the movie series, but this ride was pretty cool. You walk through a building that almost looks like dungeons, sort of, to get to the 'docks.' What I really liked, was that once you got in the little lifeboat style rafts and went into the ride, you forgot you were anywhere but riding along the coast and through the little villages where pirates were pillaging. The way the lighting was, you couldn't tell the ceiling apart from the illusion of the dark stormy skies. Animatronics are a staple of many rides in Disney, and Pirates certainly took advantage of its share. There were villagers and pirates everywhere and Jack Sparrow showed up every so often. Honestly, the effects were so good that it someone told me there were a couple of actors in with the robots, I would have believed them!

 4. Dinosaur, Dinoland, U.S.A., Animal Kingdom
          My group rode this spin off of the movie Dinosaur three times. Basically, time traveling to the early cretaceous period has become a popular tourist attraction and you're on your way to experience it. You walk into a room to get video-debriefed on the basics by the leader of the program when one of her "scientists" asks for your help to go find an Iguanodon in the late cretaceous (just before the big meteor impact that wipes out most life on Earth hits) instead. So, you get into the time rover and speed through the "time vortex" and into the dark, scary land of the dinosaurs. You ride through the 'bumpy' territory stopping to identify various dinosaurs all while the small meteor showers get more frequent. My favorite part about it was the fact that I had an excuse to scream at the big carnivores that roared and came at you (if you ever ride this, I highly advise the front row). I won't give away the ending, but you do make it back in the nick of time.

 3. Expedition Everest, Asia, Animal Kingdom
          What's really cool about Everest is the shops around it advertising oxygen tanks and high quality mountaineering equipment. The rollercoaster cars that look like a rustic train bring you all the way up to the top of Everest where you meet a broken track. The cars stop and suddenly take you backwards all the way up inside the peak where you stop again to just catch a glimpse of the shadow of a Yeti breaking the tracks. You go forward again curving around the mountain and in and out of caves. In the last cave, there's a giant furry Yeti growling at you as you go into the last, big drop (the best, in my opinion, and the only ride I rode where you can really feel the G's).

 2. Space Mountain, Tomorrowland, Magic Kingdom
          I love this ride. Waiting in line, you're walking through what I imagine the International Space Station to look like. Windows show blackness with fiber optic stars and everything is very space aged. When you walk into the Control Station, it's only a little longer until you board your rocket. You get in the single seats (three to a car, two cars to a rocket) and blast off into space. All you see is a giant pitch-black room with fiber optic stars everywhere. Shooting stars can be seen in the distance as you fly through space on the rollercoaster. At the end, you fly right into a red swirling wormhole where the cars break and lead you to where you get off.

1. Kilimanjaro Safaris, Africa, Animal Kingdom
          By far, the best. As you get in line, you learn you are being taken on a two week safari in the Harambe Wildlife Preserve in Africa. You first board an open-sided safari vehicle (like a bus) and your driver drives you through the many acres of rivers, rocky hills and open savannahs. What I think is just fantastic about this ride is that you're seeing real animals in their natural habitats- for example: reticulated giraffes, hippopotami, lions, rhinoceroses, cheetahs, elephants, antelope, ostriches, zebras, okapis, wildebeests, crocodiles and a bunch of birds like cranes and flamingoes. It's really kind of exhilarating because these animals aren't restrained by anything like a fence or pit. It's the safari vehicle riding through the lands. At the end, your driver is informed of poachers that have taken a baby elephant from his mother and the bus rushes off to help save the infant from harm.
I absolutely LOVED it.


As I said, Disney is one-of-a-kind. If there's anyone out there who hasn't been to the parks, they're definitely a must see!

Palm Trees and Kissimee

     I'm back!
     The reason I haven't written a post for almost two weeks is a good one, I promise- I've been to Florida! Last week our Jazz Band rode a charter bus for twenty-some long and uncomfortable hours to a lovely hotel right on the east coast of the Sunshine State. Since we'd done so well in previous years at competitions, we had been asked to play at Disney World as entertainment!
     The first thing our un-showered group of kids did was run to the ocean and start wading through the waves.
     Now, I've only been to the actual ocean once before in Virginia Beach (unless you count looking off the rocky Maine shore at a whole bunch of islands) and let me tell you, I think Florida wins. The waters even in late March were almost turquoise, shells were everywhere and I absolutely loved how I could be completely comfortable, even hot, in just shorts and a tank top!
     Anyway, as soon as our rooms were ready we brought all of our things to our rooms and then enjoyed the rest of the day taking advantage of the ocean, heated pool, hot tub and showers.
     We spent the next day in one of the parks (Hollywood Studios) and then did our performance, which went well. It only lasted about a half hour, but hey, we couldn't ride all the way down just for a half hour of playing. We had to make the trip worth it, right? Right.
     So, the following two days were spent in Disney World, which was so much better than I had even anticipated. When I imagined Disney World in the weeks beforehand, I thought of little kids everywhere screaming and, you know, a regular theme park.
     Boy was I wrong.
     Now, I did see a few screaming kids (some even on leashes) but the rides were far beyond anything I could have fathomed before. At the risk of repeating myself in future posts, I will only say that you have not experienced a ride until you've been to Disney. I always had a big grin on my face after every ride- they were truly amazing! It's hard to believe that all of that stemmed from one man's idea.
     The last day of our trip (not counting the bus ride home) we went to Animal Kingdom. This was my favorite park of the three we went to (the other was Magic Kingdom). I felt like I wasn't even in Disney anymore, but instead deep within Africa and Asia- depending on which area of the park I was in. There were animal "exhibits" everywhere and birds of all kinds (from ducks to flamingoes to parrots). When you got into the heart of Africa or Asia, the park even designs all of the buildings (whether they be places to eat or just shops) to look as if you're really in a village of the continent. In all seriousness- it's way cool : )
     To give and example of how crazy our trip was- I still feel like the week was a dream. Maybe it was the impossible flatness of the land, the cow pastures in swamps or just wrapping my head around the whole Disney World concept (I was actually there!) but the entire experience was really surreal.
     I can't wait to go back!


P.S. Oh, and orange juice in Florida tastes so much better! Especially complimentary cups when you use the restrooms at the information center just over the border. ; )